Dear Dr Obaid, Dear Mr Sulaiman, Dear guests,

Last week in Berlin I had the honor to meet one of the women who beat ISIS.
Jihan Alomar was a child when ISIS took her and her relatives into enslavement.
Today Jihan has made it her personal mission to tell the world about the fate of her family members and the genocidal crimes committed by ISIS to the Yazidi people
– in order for us not to forget and to stand with survivors of Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) worldwide.
This is the reason why we wanted to bring this exhibition, those portraits of Yazidi women and girls, to New York, during the Women, Peace, and Security Week. These pictures illustrate how relevant, and -unfortunately- also how urgent the WPS agenda is.
The portraits depict women who take their fate into their own hands and who never give up hope. They show the strength of women and girls who the ISIS terrorists thought to be weak. The pictures show their courage - to not only break out of imprisonment by ISIS – but to start a new life in dignity. When you look at these pictures, you can feel the pain of the portrayed women. And you can see their strength and their courage. They show survivors.

The scars of what happened ten years ago in Northern Iraq haven’t healed yet. The groundbreaking rulings of the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main 2021 in Germany cannot change the fact that until today 2 700 Yazidis are still missing. That until today 200 000 people live as internally displaced people in camps within their own country.
Especially precarious is the situation of Yazidi women who were raped by IS terrorists and bore their children. Those women are forced to make a difficult choice: they can return to their community but only without their children. The fate of these Yazidi women and their children illustrates that CRSV is a weapon of war that affects not only the direct victims but has a devastating impact on whole communities and future generations as well.
The group of children born of conflict related sexual violence is relatively small, but all the more vulnerable. We want to raise awareness for their specific situation and needs in different conflicts and countries around the world. As their mothers they deserve to live a life in dignity with full access to their citizen rights.

I am very grateful that we have the opportunity to exhibit these portraits for the next 2 weeks here in the UN Headquarters. Special thanks to Mr Saeed Qasim Sulaiman, founder and director of this touching exhibition – who is here with us today. He and the people at FARIDA who worked on the exhibition achieved to put into photographs what is hard to put into words. I also want to thanks all who worked hard to show this exhibition here in New York: thanks to the UN, the IRQ Permanent Representation and my colleagues at the GER Permanent Representation.
Jihan Alomar was 10 years old, when she was able to flee ISIS captivity after several months witnessing torture, rape and unspeakable cruelties. Her elder sister Sawsan came free only eight years later. Some of their cousins and other relatives are unaccounted for until today.
This exhibition stands for all Yazidis and their hope to live a life in dignity and peace. But this exhibition should also remind us that it is our collective responsibility to stand up against ISIS and all other inhuman ideologies in the long term.
I thank you.